Ramon Smits

Amplitube 2 VST not loaded

Yet again a VST did not load in my Ableton Live DAW. This time it is the Amplitube 2 VST by IK Multimedia. It did work if I launched Ableton with administrator priviledge but we al know that we shouldn't do that if it is not necessary and running as administrator to load a VST sure is not very useful. I launched the excellent process monitor and filtered for stuff coming from the ableton process that did not succeed and I found out that Amplitube 2 is writing to the file:

C:\Windows\msocreg32.dat

A very naste way from IK Multimedia to put that file in the Windows folder as normal users cannot create or modify that file. The file is created by Amplitube so it must be some sort of timer file for the product evaluation.

To fix this without running as administrator and with UAC enabled do the following:

1. Launch your DAW by right clicking its icon and select "Run as administrator".
2. Rescan your VST folder for new plugins. Amplitube gets loaded and the above mentioned file is created. You should be able to use the VST.
3. Quit your DAW.
4. Go to c:\Windows with file explorer.
5. Find the file "msocreg32.dat", right click it and select properties from the context menu.
6. Go to the security tab
7. Click "Edit". A UAC box will appear to ask you for permission and allow it.
8. Select the "Users" group.
9. Set a checkmark next to "Modify" in the lower list.
10. Click twice on "OK" to close both dialogs.
11. Launch your DAW as you normally would.

Now you are running as a normal user with a function Amplitube VST. This happens to more VST's like for example the Native Instruments collection required quite a lot of folders to be writable by the user. Because the files are located in the Program Files folder this is not allowed. Just do the above mentioned modification on *only* the "c:\Program Files (x86)\Native Instruments" folder and no more popups to select another folder to write to.

The tool called "process monitor" by Sysinternals really helps to identify such permission problems so download it if you have similar problems with other VST's in your favorite DAW.